Essays

Reaching for resistance and resilience through community, culture, and creation

May 18 •

Federally-funded scientific research is worth the investment for Oregon and for the US

An Op-Ed I pitched to the Baker City Herald

Feb 24 •

A National Science Foundation Elegy

Holding space for scientists' grief

Feb 20 •

Bursting the "mother tree" bubble

Why is the story of altruistic trees so attractive (and so hard for scientists to counteract)?

Jan 9 •

Negative Pressure

A memoir-y meditation on the push and pull of laboratory spaces

Oct 25, 2024 •

When feeding the world gets morally murky

The scientific savior complex and Vavilov's seed bank

Oct 7, 2024 •

The risky business of tool development in biological research

A cautionary tale

Sep 16, 2024 •

I like big risks and I cannot lie

First in a series of posts inspired by "Rationalizing Risk Aversion in Science"

Sep 2, 2024 •

Zooming to Sonder

How online teaching helped me see my students

Jul 31, 2024 •

How the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to my departure from academia, part 1

It helped me quit in all the ways you think it did . . . but in other ways as well

Jul 8, 2024 •

Fact-checking my scientific origin story

My contribution to the 2024 Atheneum Fellows Reading

Jun 3, 2024 •

Control the narrative!

Who gets to decide what we talk about when we talk about plants?

May 28, 2024 •

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